


Put Your Heart Back in Your Pocket (pick your love up off the floor)

by scarletjuliet



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: (only a little), Anal Sex, Angst, Blood, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, broken things, i promise there is a tiny bit of hope, set after Freddie's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 16:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18528778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletjuliet/pseuds/scarletjuliet
Summary: The soft pop of the cork seemed to speak only of John’s expertise in the area and he shuddered a little, bracing himself on the edge of the sink. He brought the champagne to his lips and it tasted like how glass glittered when it was all smashed up on the kitchen floor.Roger and John deal with Freddie's death, as individuals and as lovers.





	Put Your Heart Back in Your Pocket (pick your love up off the floor)

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all are prepared for some unsexy sex and a lot of crying hahahaha :')  
> Inspired by the MIKA song, [Pick Up Off The Floor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zDcWTK9cdA).

...

 

They didn’t used to have sex at midday. But when Roger stepped out of their en suite, pink all over and a towel wrapped around his waist, John never knew quite how to tell him no.

 

He’d gone to all the trouble of cleaning after all, John thought, as Roger licked at the inside of his mouth and slid warm hands under his sweater to caress the soft skin of his stomach. He responded with what he hoped was an appropriate level of eagerness while his mind wandered to the sound of the rain rattling against the window. Roger let out a contented sigh against John’s lips, and John absently reached around to pull the towel down.

 

He wondered how good a distraction he was going to manage to be today.

 

It wasn’t long before Roger was yanking at the sweater, and John leaned back to pull it over his own head. He caught only a glimpse of Roger after the fabric had passed across his line of vision—all rosy-lipped with pupils blown—before Roger was surging forward to kiss him again, teasing the waistband of his sweatpants. A flash of anxiety overcame John for a split second, because if he was honest his cock was not even quite half interested, and he made an attempt to refocus on the feeling of the man he loved in his lap, his talented mouth and warm body.

 

Fortunately, sharp bursts of pleasure began to solve this problem as Roger reached down to twist John’s left nipple. Panting, John shut the rain out of his mind and reached a hand around to caress the expanse of Roger’s back.

 

“I’ve prepared,” came Roger’s tight voice against John’s mouth. John was still for a split second, and his heart began to pound—not from arousal, but from how Roger’s voice sounded, so quiet and compressed and suddenly the rain burst through John’s consciousness, hammering.

 

Then Roger was mouthing John’s jawline and John let out a small, involuntary moan, his hand continuing its slide down to Roger’s arse. His index finger slipped in slowly but easily—Roger had indeed prepared—and John was all too aware of the throb of Roger’s cock on his belly when Roger insistently pressed down on the finger, pushing it in further, faster. The feeling elicited an odd cocktail of arousal and sickness, turning in John’s stomach, and he paused for a moment before wasting no more time to slip in a second finger.

 

As he pressed deeper, stretching and probing, the sounds escaping Roger’s mouth seemed almost ludicrous. Panting, whining—a pornographic moan made John stop, pulling his fingers out. It sounded desperate, in more ways than one.

 

Roger was pressing the lube bottle into John’s hand and John uncapped it easily, pushing Roger so he was hovering on his knees. Using one hand to lubricate his own cock with practiced strokes, he used the other to splay across Roger’s back, gently pushing him forward so John could swirl his tongue around each of Roger’s nipples. Roger began to whimper, crying out softly when John gave one a gentle bite. It had the desired effect—John was now mostly hard, and when Roger’s legs began to tremble, he swallowed and let his hand slide off.

 

It was a staring-into-his-eyes-day, John realised with a sinking heart when Roger lowered himself onto John’s cock.

 

“F-fuck,” said Roger, shutting his eyes briefly. John shut his eyes too, not opening them again until he felt Roger lift up and then bring himself back down again. When John snapped his hips up to meet him Roger let out a little choked noise. John swallowed, closing his eyes again, and tried to focus on the sensation of their juddering bodies, rather than the waning rain and the nausea somewhere deep inside him.

 

It was without warning that Roger stopped, John’s thrust meeting no complementary movement. The change made John’s eyes flutter open. Roger was staring in the direction of John’s chest but John knew he was looking at something else.

 

“Okay,” came Roger’s trembling words, his grip on John’s sides loosening, “Let’s give it up, eh?”

 

“If you want to,” said John, his voice coming out hoarse. He offered a small smile when Roger glanced up, reaching to let his hand cup Roger’s cheek briefly before it fell back down to his shoulder.

 

Roger inhaled sharply, smiling just a little in response, before leaning back to slip off. John’s cock rebounded to hit his stomach wetly, obscenely. He grimaced, and as Roger turned around and hopped off the bed he felt his chest tighten almost imperceptibly.

 

“I’m just gonna…” Roger trailed off, swiping a pair of briefs off of the floor and sticking his shaky legs through them. John took deep breaths, closing his eyes. He listened to the sound of Roger padding out of the room. Then he opened them again.

 

He was soft by the time he was ready to stand up and follow Roger out the door. Almost not expecting his legs to support his body, John slid off the bed and made his way out, down the hallway.

 

It wasn’t long before he was close enough to the kitchen to hear the sound of ceramic smashing.

 

His tiptoeing became an awkward jog. His heart felt jittery and heavy, thundering faster and faster. When he reached the door to the kitchen he didn’t enter. He didn’t even look in, standing against the adjacent wall and willing his blood to cease storming in his chest. Only a few metres away was the crashing, the shattering, the blur of the curses flying from Roger’s lips. It was like, and John tried his best to force down the tears that threatened to crawl up his throat, the universe had pressed fast forward on their life coming undone.

 

(It had been in slow motion for the past month.)

 

The smashing stopped. John was frozen in place, breathing laboured. He tried to quieten himself because the silence was as such he felt a responsibility to listen to it. Then came the low whine. The small, choked sob.

 

When John looked, the kitchen was littered with shards, glittering with pieces of mugs and glasses and dinner plates. The cutlery drawer was pulled out and there were a number of cake forks on the floor. John felt sick to his stomach; he ached because he knew why Roger had done it. It felt right. This was what their kitchen should look like right now, a far cry from the echo of normalcy that he knew haunted the both of them.

 

“Rog…” said John, quietly. Roger was stood in the middle of the kitchen, quivering, hands over his face. He had his back to John, but turned at John’s voice.

 

John lifted his hand and let out a panicked “Wait!” when Roger seemed to be about to move towards him. Heart pounding, he darted around the corner for where he knew they kept a broom. As he swept the shards to the edges of the kitchen, allowing a pathway through which they could safely walk, Roger continued to cry. John felt his hands growing shakier and shakier until he let the broom fall down with a clatter, defeated. He moved towards Roger.

 

Roger seemed to melt in his arms and John felt his throat grow painfully thick. “John…” came the tiny voice, and then coughing and spluttering and John gently pulled, manoeuvring the pair of them out of the door.

 

When Roger was on the bed once more, now lying, John let himself look at him properly for the first time. Roger looked tired. His chest rose and fell erratically, and though the sobbing had ceased the evidence was still present in the tear tracks down his cheeks. Eventually, his eyes fluttered open and he choked, “John… he’s—”

 

Panic filled John’s body and he shushed the reclining man, standing upright and whirling around to collect his sweater from the floor. Pulling it on quickly, he then shimmied his underwear onto his hips and turned back to Roger. He took a moment to perch on the edge of the bed, tentatively reaching out to cup Roger’s face with one hand.

 

“I’m going to go clean up,” he said, thumbing Roger’s cheek carefully. “Try to rest, Rog.”

 

Roger didn’t say anything, but he did hook his hand around the back of John’s neck, pulling with an insistency that brought their lips together for a brief moment. It ached to stand back up, to avoid giving Roger one last glance as John slipped out of the door.

 

But it ached most of all to peer back into the kitchen, where all the broken pieces of their lives lay unsuppressed, for anyone to walk in and see. John shook as he made his way in, shook with the urgency to damage control. He felt the crunch of ceramic under the heels of the boots he had donned for the task, reaching down to pick up the broom.

 

Too late he realized the handle had been laid amongst bits of broken plate, and when the sharp pain shot through his middle finger he dropped it immediately. “Fuck.” John hissed, examining the small cut as blood began to seep out of it, slow and red.

 

Stumbling over to the sink, John all of a sudden found the grate of the smashed glass underfoot agonising. He ran water over the wound—a diagonal gash that extended partly over his knuckle—and it throbbed. Suddenly he wondered if the tap was really the best course of action and he cursed again, switching it off and drying his hands off with a tea towel.

 

He had to fling open three cupboards to find the first aid kit, and he supposed it was this inaccuracy that had the bottle of Perrier-Jouët catching his eye as he wrapped a band-aid around his finger. It was expensive and John couldn’t remember whether there was a reason they had it exactly, though he did think very hard about it as he took the bottle in hand. Something dark and unusual was swirling in John’s gut, and he tried not to consider why exactly he found himself twisting the wire undone with shaky hands.

 

The soft pop of the cork seemed to speak only of John’s expertise in the area and he shuddered a little, bracing himself on the edge of the sink. He brought the champagne to his lips and it tasted like how glass glittered when it was all smashed up on the kitchen floor.

 

As he stood there and sipped and stared out the window overlooking just a small portion of the massive Surrey garden, the rain began to pitter down again. The wind picked up and threw droplets against the glass and John thought about how it’d been a month since the funeral and how he probably had to buy new dinner plates by the looks of it and how he couldn’t remember the last time he had made Roger come. He took a particularly large gulp, and then examined the half empty bottle carefully, light-headed. Then, and with a measured grace, he tipped it, letting the rest of the sparkling wine glug out, all £100 of it splashing around the sink, down the drain, because John honestly didn’t know that opulence had ever brought him anything but pain.

 

This was something that Roger would never be able to quite understand.

 

When it was all gone he set the bottle on the countertop. There was a tremor in his hands. When he shifted slightly in place the crunch underfoot was inordinately loud in the big, silent house. John hunched over the sink, feeling the all too familiar clawing at his throat, and pressed his lips together tightly. It was no use. The involuntary whine coming from behind them was somehow louder than the shattered ceramic. And then all of a sudden he couldn’t hold it anymore, his mouth shot open and his eyes clenched shut and the sob shook his entire frame.

 

John lurched forward, letting his forehead hit where his forearms rested on the edge of the sink. The tears were flowing freely now, and he made half-hearted attempts to wipe them away as they came for a while before giving up. The sobbing was jerky and caused him to shift and the glass scraped against the tile and the rain kept coming and god, oh god, he missed Freddie. Now that he had let himself think about it, he couldn’t stop. _Oh god. Oh god._

 

The crunching of the broken bits seemed to get louder and louder and oh _fuck_ , his head was so full and heavy, but then he felt warm arms around his waist and he realised all of a sudden that the crunching had been Roger, crossing the kitchen.

 

This only made him cry harder.

 

“John, love,” said Roger, and the pet name was so rare that even though John’s heart was breaking he reached down to grip onto Roger’s arms, tightly.

 

There was quiet for a while, besides the little sounds John couldn’t contain as he wept.

 

“Can we talk about this?” asked Roger.

 

John shook his head immediately through the tears. No. That was the last thing he wanted. He’d let it all escape even just in his mind and look what had happened. Fragments of glass, all over his brain.

 

“Okay,” Roger said quietly.

 

It took a lot of John’s willpower to lift his head and swivel around slowly so he was facing Roger. He tried to focus on the feeling of Roger’s firm grip on his waist. It was almost as though they were about to perform a slow dance. Twirling through their broken kitchen to a symphony of the clinks and crunches of shifting glass. In their underwear, John with his orange sweater, wearing their matching Wellington boots so that their feet would not bleed.

 

“Hey. I love you.” Roger said, firmly, forcing their eyes to meet. John, who had just managed to slow the tears, felt a new lump in his throat and in response could only bury his face in Roger’s shoulder. Pull him close. Accept his warmth.

 

When he pulled away he did so to examine Roger’s face. Now he looked properly, really properly. Roger did not only look tired—he looked old. John could still see traces of the lithe, bottle-blond heartthrob who had once sexed and unexpectedly wooed him—but for the most part, he was undeniably gone. Roger Taylor was beautiful, but he was old. And grieving. And confused, as John had been staring for quite a while now, but he didn’t stop. He looked where over the years the creases between Roger’s eyebrows had formed, where his cheeks had filled out. The blue shock of his eyes, rimmed red from crying.

 

One month down. The rest of their lives to go. John didn’t know if he could do this, but he leant forward to kiss Roger’s cheek all the same. Let his hands trail down to Roger’s soft sides. Roger flinched almost imperceptibly, but pulled John closer anyway.

 

“Let’s go back to bed, yeah? Deaky?”

 

And so they left the kitchen behind and took their boots off outside of the bedroom and John let himself enjoy the feeling of Roger rubbing his back in comfort, the sweater sliding warmly over his skin. They cried under the sheets and listened to the rain and when Roger called John ‘love’ again John thought _yes, love indeed_.

 

…

**Author's Note:**

> Asdfghjkl thanks for reading!!


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